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I feel you. I am ordering the gearskin pack for my thru. It will be my third pack. I have 2 hammocks and want to sew a third for a backup. I want to have a complete hammock setup at home that can be mailed to me if needed. I think I will have everything but the tarp. I may try to make another one if I score some cheap WM sil.

Is that too much to ask? Girls with frikkin' lasers on their heads?
The hanger formly known as "hammock engineer".

Repeat after me - I'm powerless over making and buying better gear, and I like it

The male dino is not the gear nut I am -- he just doesn't get it (he does, however, own every woodworking tool known to man and has a monsterous stack of wood available at all times ). He laughs at my Barbie-sized prototype tents with the pipecleaner 'poles' (the grandkids love them), but I have ruled out a lot of unworkable ideas or tweaked designs using those tiny tents.

I am retired and on a fixed income. Thus I had to learn to do better research on items I purchased and like a lot of other things also learn that 5 minutes after I buy it it is obsolete because someone introduced something cheaper or lighter. Not having the disposible income I used to enjoy cured me real quick.

Would I like to get my pack weight down even farther? Why sure who the He double-hockeysticks wouldn't if it means an easier hike.

The nice thing about making your own gear is that you know what it has in it, you fell confident in it's integrity (hopefully), and hopefully it was cheaper. I just made an underquilt based on the design on the KAQ website (pictures posted in gallery). While the cost was cheaper in respect to dollars spent, when you consider my personal labor the cost was probably the same as if I had just ordered one from KAQ or JRB. It's not that I don't believe that both have great quality goods. On the contrary, the testaments on this forum and a couple others attests to the fact that both have a great product.

I tried cutting the handle off my toothbrush at home as a test and example of saving weight and found that it was not easy for me to brush my teeth the way I like to. I like the leverage that the longer handle gives me to get back in the deep cavern of a mouth I have and clean where the most food hides out after a meal.

Oh well, at some point you will make the decision that enough is enough and you cannot and will not keep up with the 'Jones'.

Oh as if you or anyone else needs to be reminded, you pay say 300 dollars for a quality sleeping bag which you find does not make you feel warm or is not comfortable for whatever reason. You decide to sell it. I find that I don't get the 300 dollars back nor the shipping charges if any were involved, blah blah blah.

So at some point you will say to yourself, self I have had enough and while not thrilled am happy or very happy with my current gear and it does what I want and go your maerry way.

There I think I talked my self out of that last purchase I was contemplating.

I forgot to add that I need a 12 step plan for making gear. I am getting better at sewing and each project turns out a little better that just makes me want to sew more.

I'm with you there.

My list of sewing projects keeps growing and growing. It doesn't help that my wife has seen how good my sewing has gotten and decided she has her own personal sweat shop worker on tap. I keep hearing things like "Can you hem my pants. They're to long." or "This [insert article of clothing here] has a tear in it can you fix it?". The bad part is the sewing machine was her Christmas gift from last year and she has hardly uses it.

The other day she came home with some fleece material with a print of baby Snoopy on it and requested that I make her a blanket.

I still have about 6 projects right now that I want to get done, including a silnylon tarp that I want to finish before the winter campout.

My list of sewing projects keeps growing and growing. It doesn't help that my wife has seen how good my sewing has gotten and decided she has her own personal sweat shop worker on tap. I keep hearing things like "Can you hem my pants. They're to long." or "This [insert article of clothing here] has a tear in it can you fix it?". The bad part is the sewing machine was her Christmas gift from last year and she has hardly uses it.

The other day she came home with some fleece material with a print of baby Snoopy on it and requested that I make her a blanket.

I still have about 6 projects right now that I want to get done, including a silnylon tarp that I want to finish before the winter campout.

that's funny headchange4u<G>... i've already run into some of that too & i don't even have a wife